Businesses or other entities having a need for volume printing typically use a production printer capable of printing hundreds of pages per minute. A web of print media, such as paper, is stored in the form of a large roll and unraveled as a continuous sheet. During printing, the web is quickly passed underneath printheads which discharge small drops of ink at particular intervals to form pixel images on the web. The web may then be dried and cut to produce a printed product.
Since production printers print high quality images at high speed, it is important that the drying process of the web is quick, effective, and efficient. One such drying mechanism is a hollow metal drum heated with a radiant energy source inside the drum, such as a lamp. The lamp heats the surface of the drum to a desired temperature and the web contacts the heated rotating surface of the drum to dry ink on the web at a controlled temperature. However, various environmental factors of the print system, such as the web location, ink amounts, lamp properties, and printing time may cause the surface of the drum to be heated unevenly, resulting in decreased heat efficiency and poor drying performance.